Couture? My dress cost £5, says Carly
CARLY BAWDEN has a fabulous black dress her mother bought from oxfam for a fiver.
‘the label’s not familiar and I haven’t seen the dress anywhere else, but it is amazing!’ the actress told me.
the £5 little black number is i n stark contrast to the designer replicas she’ll wear in the play McQueen, which transfers to the theatre royal, haymarket, on august 13.
one sequence r equires Bawden, who won acclaim for her portrayal of eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady in Sheffield and for her performance in assassins at the Menier Chocolate Factory, to wear a gold McQueen frock coat with lacquered feathers that cost a hundred or more £5 notes to recreate. an original would set you back many times that sum.
the play, by James Phillips, stars Stephen Wright as the late designer and Bawden as Dahlia, a fictional character obsessed with McQueen.
Bawden, who studied at the Guildford School of acting, is taking over f rom Dianna agron, who created the role at the St James’s theatre, but was pilloried by critics.
Phillips has re-written parts of the play, and Bawden is eminently familiar with how to walk, talk and own a stage.
She admits to being ‘a bit obsessed’ with fashion, but not compulsively so.
‘I’m not a fashionista,’ she laughed. She does love looking through vintage stores and charity shops, though.